Can you see those B-52’s? Now that’s what you call soft power. (Chrysler whale not depicted, but sources report it was about to set sail)

Don’t click to expand

So let’s see here. China’s newly-declared East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) is a big flop already. Who’s going to recognize it? North Korea, maybe. But anybody else?

Nope. Not South Korea, not Taiwan, not the U.S., not the Philippines, and not Vietnam and certainly not Japan. So for a regular ANA or JAL flight from Tokyo to Taipei, do you think that the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) is going to scramble the fighters every day?

I don’t. How could it?

So you declare a bunch of rules and nobody cares. How does this benefit the people of China?

[UPDATE: Upon further review, these aren’t Chinese naval uniforms after all:

At first I thought they could have been from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy.

And oh, look what’s on the PLAN’s to-do list:

See that? In addition to taking over Japanese islands (the Senkakus and others), the neo-Imperial Chinese Navy wants to take over Vietnamese, Malaysian, Filipino, and Bruneian islands as well. And don’t forget about Taiwan.